10 Phenomenally Tricky Books Everyone Should Read

10 Phenomenally Tricky Books Everyone Should Read

This morning, we read Laura Miller’s piece on “sneaky author tricks” over at Salon, in which she muses on the dangers of metafictional, tricks-y writing — one of her points being that if an author’s going to do it, he’d better do it well. Like Miller, we are rather fond of authorial tricks, and considering that today is April Fools’ day, we thought we’d collect a few of the best here. Click through to see a few of our favorite tricky books.

Oh yes. We’re willing to call this one the best metafictional novels we’ve ever read — an endless procession of first chapters to increasingly wonderful novels, buoyed by a frame narrative of reading, romance, and adventure. Even the table of contents is a poem. Seriously, buy this book. You’ll be getting way more than you paid for.